Keywords with no search volume

[sararufo]

Hi there!

What are your thoughts on optimizing pages for keywords that have no search volume (using the Keyword Planner)? I'm not sure it should be done, since optimizing for keywords that no one searches for is kind of useless, right? Or should I do it hoping that sometime in the future the keyword will have a surge on searches?

Thanks!

[WilliamKammer]

It's important to look at webmaster and analytics data for this. The keyword planner isn't exactly accurate. I see traffic coming from keywords all the time that don't have a search volume in keyword planner, or have a vastly different number in keyword planner when compared to the data I get other places.

I think it takes a bit more digging than that, and you also need to consider the long-tail effect from the keywords you're optimizing for.

Asking some of the clients of the business how they search or look for your products can be very helpful.

With that being said, keywords with high volume in the keyword planner do usually offer much more traffic, but also much more competition.

[sararufo]

Thanks for your answer!

Let's say we're developing a new product that we've never sold before. We're setting up a new page for the product and doing some keyword research for the optimization. In this case, Analytics is not setup (an issue we can't currently solve), we only have Webmaster Tools. But since we've never sold the product we don't really have useful data that we can use...

[trung.ngo]

Hey there sararufo,

Instead of focusing on keyword search volume, I'd recommend thinking through the process a person might go through to research and purchase the product, then ensuring that you A) have the content they're likely to want to see in the research process and B) are using the language that they might use to conduct research--shifting the focus on the searcher's intent more than the keyword itself.

A good place to start your research would be to look at the brands/publishers ranking for the head terms in your space to get a sense of how they, and likely customers, are talking about a type of product. You can then put the ranking page into Keyword Planner in the 'Landing Page' field to see what keywords Google associates the page with.

You can also put your head terms into a tool like Ubersuggest or Keywordtool.io to find long tail queries related to your topic and use that data to make your page even better for users.

Hope that helps you get started!

-Trung

[WilliamKammer]

Then you'll need to go off the data you have. The keyword planner is still a good tool to use, it just can't be 100% trusted. You can also play with the Google auto-suggest (waterfall) that pops up as you type things in. The suggestions are based on search volume.

There are also keyword research tools out there that can help. SEMRush, SpyFu, etc.

Also look at competitor sites that already sell the product. See what they are targeting in their title tags and H1s.

[EricaMcGillivray]

Yes, you should/can, especially for longtail, which may have almost no volume in AdPlanner. I worked for an e-commerce site that had a few people hitting for a certain longtail term, but those customers knew what they wanted, converted at a higher rate, and spent the big bucks.

It's also worth noting that Google gets 3.5 billion searches per day (and trending up) and 16-20% of those searches are brand-new, never been searched for before.